English Attack! Emerges From Beta Testing; Now Live!

PARIS, June 21st, 2011: Following 12 months of Beta testing with over 25,000 users worldwide, the Entertainment Learning company today launches the official version of its English Attack! online language learning service (www.english-attack.com).

The full impact of the internet revolution has yet to be seen in the field of education, and in particular most online language-learning sites are still based on exercises and structures typical of early 20th-century pedagogy, far removed from the interests and motivations of today’s learners.

« Where many English language learning methods still have a rather abstract and linear approach, English Attack! is focused on immersion and motivation. Our approach uses authentic content and the brain’s hunger for rewards, social connectivity and discovery » said Frederic Tibout, co-founder of Entertainment Learning.

English Attack! achieves this with a combination of video clips, thematic visual dictionaries, and games; a motivational reward-rich ecosystem; and an international community of learners of English.

Video Boosters are fun, interactive multimedia exercises based on short (one to three-minute) video clips from current movies, hit TV series, news channels and music videos.

English Attack! also features Photo Vocabs, which are visual dictionaries on a wide variety of subjects.

Learners using English Attack! can periodically revisit the language elements absorbed in these learning units via a range of Practice Games, in which game design favoring repetition, replayability andchallengehelps the shifting of the learned material into long-term memory.

The site’s system of scoring and badges, adapted from the most successful videogame environments, creates additional motivation for learners and replaces the conventional «evaluation » system of grades and pass/fail.

Finally, the site’s social functionalities (comments, making friends, messages) encourage the learner to actually use English in a friendly, learner-tolerant social context, putting site users in touch with other learners of English from around the world and thus creating a deeper personal involvement with the learning of the language.

Near-daily exposure to a language is by now recognized as a sine qua non factor in the effective learning of it. On English Attack!, the combination of fresh, current, real-world content with easy access short-session exercises creates the ideal conditions for frequent use of the site, and thus frequent exposure to (and use of) English.

Entertainment Learning’s Innovative Business Model

Most traditional language-learning sites have adopted a subscription model, which often results in a high level of expense, in terms of both money and length of the subscription period, for the learner, especially those in the 15-25 age range. English Attack! has instead adopted the « free-to-play » model which is currently proving highly popular with users of online social games.

The user enjoys free use of the site’s functionalities, as well as free access to a selection of content refreshed daily. Access to the entire catalog of pedagogical content is available via the site’s virtual currency (Booster Coins), with which a time-limited access pass (the Booster Pass) can be purchased. The user has a choice of accumulating Booster Coins via regular use of the site; via direct purchase; or through participation in special offers put forward by the site’s commercial partners.

English Attack! has been designed for use by individual learners as a complement to other forms of instruction; but can also be adopted as a language training resource by schools, universities, language institutes and companies.

English Attack! was created in consultation with several teachers of English as a Foreign Language and is based on the latest findings of cognitive neuroscience. It is already being used both in the classroom and as a homework platform by many teachers in several different countries.

English Attack! is from today available worldwide, and will have a site interface localised in 20 languages. English, French, Italian and Spanish are already available on the site today.